


This Part of Love

by Taste_is_Sweet



Series: You Make Me Feel  Like I Am Home Again [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Feels, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pre-Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There was an intimacy to this that Steve had never had before. They slept in the same bed sometimes, sharing warmth in the winter, and it was hard to have any kind of privacy in such a tiny apartment. But this felt bigger than that, somehow. Maybe it was the unthinking trust in the way Bucky let Steve move his head, or just the fact that Steve had never combed anyone else's hair, let alone for someone he cared about so much.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Part of Love

**Author's Note:**

> With huge thanks to my beloved sister [Squeaky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeaky/works) and my lovely friend [Brumeier](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier) for the beta work.
> 
> This Story fills the **Grief** square of my [Hurt/Comfort Bingo](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/) [card](http://taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com/85941.html).
> 
>  **Now you can read this story in Chinese!** Thanks to **papayaaaaa**. [You can find the translation here.](http://2826804179.lofter.com/post/1d1a462a_10a56bb0) :D :D :D

Steve woke up to Bucky's quiet cursing from the apartment bathroom, muffled through the wall but not muffled enough to let him sleep through it. Steve was a light sleeper anyway, more so lately than he used to be, even. It was hard to relax and sleep when every night meant one day closer to Bucky leaving.

Steve sat up, yawning and running his fingers through his messy hair. A quick glance at the alarm clock on his bedside table showed that it was closer to the middle of the night than dawn. Whatever Bucky was doing he was real sore about it, considering the language he was using. Steve got out of bed and went to find him.

The bathroom door was open, light pouring from the bare bulb. Bucky was in front of the mirror in just his boxers. There was a lit cigarette in his mouth and he was spreading what looked like half a jar of Brylcreem through his hair, glaring at his reflection like he was trying to pick a fight with it.

"Die, you fucking, God-damn—Oh, shit. I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No," Steve lied, shaking his head. "What are you doing?"

"I got fucking cooties," Bucky said. He took a drag of the cigarette and blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. There were smears of Brylcreem on the cigarette, more of it on the sink and the mirror. "One of the guys at the docks said this stuff'll smother the fuckers."

"Cooties?" Steve blinked, suddenly hyper aware of his own scalp. He ran his fingers through his hair again, but he couldn't feel anything moving. "How did—" The cigarette smoke started him coughing before he could finish.

"Shit." Bucky spat the half-burned cigarette into the sink, then ran water over it, smearing Brylcreem all over the tap. He looked at his greasy hands, then wiped them on his bare stomach and wrenched the window open. "Sorry. You were asleep—I didn't think it was going to bother you." He looked anxiously at Steve. "Better?"

Steve nodded mutely, still coughing. "Yeah, thanks," he was able to gasp finally. When he looked up again Bucky was back to his attempted louseicide with beeswax and mineral oil. Only now he'd managed to get dust from the window mixed in with the grease in his hair. Steve started laughing.

Bucky scowled at him. "What?"

Steve just laughed harder, which started him coughing again. He staggered out of the bathroom and leaned against the wall until he wasn't wheezing so much anymore.

Bucky came out of the bathroom too, looking like he wasn't sure if he should be worried or annoyed. He put his hands on his hips, getting grease and dust on his boxers now too. "You done cracking up?"

Steve nodded, taking in Bucky's shiny chest and hands, grease-covered boxers and his hair, which was now so full of Brylcreem that it glistened like a pool of oil, except for the occasional streaks of grey dust in it. It was very hard not to start laughing again. "You look like you've been hit by a Vaseline truck."

Bucky tried another scowl, but it ended up looking a lot more like a smirk. "Jackass."

Steve grinned at him, and Bucky grinned back, ridiculous and dusty and greasy, and Steve loved him so much it made his heart hurt. And in four days he was going to leave and Steve wouldn't be able to follow him.

He swallowed, looking away before his expression completely betrayed him. "It's pretty late. How long were you supposed to keep that stuff in your hair, anyway?"

"I don't know." Bucky shrugged. "An hour, maybe? It can't take that long for the little bastards to croak, can it?" He huffed an annoyed breath, tried to run his fingers through is hair, then grimaced with they were stopped by the gleaming sludge he'd coated it with.

"No idea," Steve said. He stretched, extremely aware of the thinness of his arms and how his elbows popped like he was an old man. Bucky's eyes jumped from Steve's arms to his also-bare and horribly thin chest. Steve hated the flicker of worry that always went through Bucky's eyes, like Steve was about to keel over dead any second. He clapped his arms back to his sides.

Bucky grimaced. He rubbed the side of his face, where a drip of grease had slid down from his temple. "You should go back to bed, Steve. You don't got to stay up to keep me and my cooties company." He jutted his chin towards the bedroom. "Go on. One of us should be sleeping, at least. I didn't mean to wake you up, anyhow."

"You didn't," Steve lied again. "Besides." He cocked his head, smiling innocently. "I'm thinking maybe I should get my sketchbook. It's inspiring, the way your hair's reflecting the light."

Bucky rolled his eyes, then arched an eyebrow. "Here. Have some, then." He quickly plowed his fingers through his hair, then held them out like he was going to wipe them off on Steve. Steve yelped and backed away, but instead of advancing on him Bucky made a disgusted noise and wiped his fingers on his boxers. "Damn dead louse on my finger," he explained.

"At least it's dead, right?" Steve said, then, "Wait—I just remembered. I have a lice comb." He ducked widely around Bucky and his slimy hands and went back into the bathroom. It was in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror over their cracked pedestal sink. Steve couldn't remember when he put it in there, other than it had to have been when he moved in with Bucky.

His mother hadn't had many things, in the end. Not even jewelry. Steve had been shocked at how few boxes he and Bucky had needed to pack up the apartment.

He picked up the small, fine-toothed comb, feeling the smooth, worn wood. He could still remember crying the first time she'd had to comb the nits out of his hair. He must've been six or seven, and overwhelmed by the horror of what seemed like tiny, wiggly monsters living on his head. He'd felt so vulnerable all the time back then, helpless. Such a scrawny, sickly little kid that he'd been. Even after his mother had explained how harmless lice were, other than the itching, and how common, they'd still terrified him.

Steve didn't feel vulnerable anymore, though God knew sometimes Bucky treated him like he was made of spun glass or something. But the helplessness never quite went away: like all the times he got the tar beat out of him, trying to bring some justice to the world; or every time he got sick and everything fell to Bucky again; or when he'd tried to enlist and got turned away.

"You find it yet?" Bucky called to him, and Steve startled and winced and brought the comb into the living room. "Get the newspaper, and then sit down in front of one of the chairs."

Bucky eyed him as he went into the kitchen. "On the floor?"

"Yeah." Steve nodded. He smiled. "This'll probably take all night, with the amount of gunk you put on your head. You don't expect me to stand the whole time, do you?"

He'd expected Bucky to laugh or roll his eyes again, but he just looked worried.

It seemed to be the only way Bucky looked at him anymore, ever since he'd sauntered in the door with the news that he'd joined up.

Steve took a deep breath, biting back the urge to snap that he was fine. He waited until Bucky sat cross-legged near the kitchen table, then he moved a chair until he could sit comfortably with his knees bracketing Bucky's shoulders and Bucky's back to him. He took the newspaper from Bucky's hand. "I'm going to see if I can comb the lice and the nits out." He paused, considering. "Bend your head forward."

"Swell. Let 'em have it." Bucky obediently bowed his head, exposing his glistening nape.

Steve pulled the comb through the hair behind Bucky's ears, then wiped the Brylcreem off with the newspaper. "Got one," he reported. He wiped the comb again, peering at the tiny corpse on the paper. "Definitely dead. Looks like your pal knows what he's talking about." He smiled ruefully. "Of course, washing this stuff out is going to be a real gas."

"No fooling."

Steve made a noise of agreement and started on a new patch of hair, parting it into sections the way he remembered his mother doing for him. "Found a couple nits," he said, assuming Bucky would want to know about it. 

Bucky gave him a thumbs-up but didn't say anything. 

"I'm afraid you're going to have newsprint in your hair," Steve said after wiping the comb off again. The ink from the newspaper had started to bleed from the liquid in the cream.

Bucky smirked. "Don't worry about it. They're probably going to shave me bald in basic anyway. I just didn't want to show up there with a head full of cooties."

"At least that'll get all the Brylcreem off," Steve said, smiling a little at Bucky's laugh.

He went to a new section, still on the right side of Bucky's head. He was getting Brylcreem and ink and even dust all over his fingers and the comb, but he didn't mind. He was glad to be the one helping for once, rather than the one needing it. And there was an intimacy to this that he'd never had before. They slept in the same bed sometimes, sharing warmth in the winter, and it was hard to have any kind of privacy in such a tiny apartment. But this felt bigger than that, somehow. Maybe it was the unthinking trust in the way Bucky let Steve move his head, or just the fact that Steve had never combed anyone else's hair, let alone for someone he cared about so much.

Now he understood why Sarah Rogers never seemed to mind doing this for him, all the times he'd come home from school with his head itching. The way he loved Bucky was very different from the way Sarah had loved him, but he was sure that this part of love, at least, was the same.

It'd been years since she died, but sometimes the littlest thing would remind him of her and he missed her so much he ached. And now Bucky was leaving him too, going to be a soldier, and Steve had no illusions about what might happen to him. His father had died choking on mustard gas in a trench in 1917. Some nights Steve stared at the wall in the darkness and imagined that happening to Bucky: his best friend clawing for air on a dank, cold battlefield, lost to help and hope and life.

"I really hate that you're going, Buck," Steve said.

"I know." Bucky sighed, lifted his hand to run his fingers through his hair, but then stopped and just dropped it back into his lap.

Steve nodded even though Bucky couldn't see him. His throat hurt too much to let him speak. He pushed Bucky's head so he could start on the left side. Bucky leaned his head against Steve's thigh, then jerked up immediately. "Damn it. Sorry. Forgot about all the gunk in my hair."

"Don't worry about it," Steve said, hoping his voice didn't rasp too much. He pushed Bucky's head again, pleased when Bucky leaned on his thigh without more protest.

"I'm doing it for you, you know," Bucky said quietly. They hadn't spoken for a while but there was no question what he was talking about. "I told you about Eli, right? One of the guys I work with?" he went on before Steve could answer. "His aunt's in Switzerland. She told him that the refugees coming out of Germany said Hitler's got camps set up where the Nazis are sending all the Jews. Only it's not a POW camp—they kill everyone as soon as they get off the train. All of 'em. And then they burn the bodies in big ovens. You can smell it for miles."

Steve stopped with the wet comb buried near Bucky's forehead. "That's nuts."

"I know what it sounds like, but you should'a seen his face, Stevie. Eli wasn't handing me a line." Bucky sat up, turned around as much as he could to look at Steve. "And he told me that Hitler's not just taking Jews, either. They've been rounding up Catholics, too. And cripples."

"I'm not a cripple, Bucky," Steve said tightly. He pushed Bucky's head back around, probably a bit more harshly than he should've.

"I know that." Bucky said it like Steve had insulted him. "I know that. Geez. I've never thought you were a cripple or anything." He took a breath. "But that don't change the fact that you're Catholic, and about 90 pounds soaking wet and you got asthma and a bad heart and you get sick all the time. And I just keep thinking, what if those Nazi bastards get all the way over here?" He turned his head again, dislodging the comb. His eyes were big and haunted. "What if they start building those camps and send you there? What'll I do then, huh?"

He looked so worried that for a moment it was horribly easy to imagine: soldiers goose-stepping through Times Square; people like him behind walls of barbed wire; being shot like condemned prisoners. Steve shook himself, then snorted and wiped off the lice comb. "That's not gonna happen, Buck."

Bucky turned away again. "Damn right, it won't." He wrapped his hand around Steve's ankle.

They both fell into a not-entirely comfortable silence. Steve was almost finished and he found himself moving more and more slowly, reluctant to have this moment end. He swallowed. "I still don't want you to go."

"I know," Bucky said. He squeezed Steve's ankle harder. "I don't want to leave you either. I hate that I have to leave you behind, with no one to keep you from freezing your balls off or make sure you don't drop dead from the flu or something. But I hate what might happen if I don't go even more. Geez, Stevie, you got no idea. I…" He shook his head mutely, then leaned against Steve's leg again. It was awkward with his height, but he didn't seem to notice. He moved his arm so he was hugging Steve's calf with his hand on his knee. "Nothing can happen to you," he said, and the quiet of his voice didn't soften the ferocity in it. "And nothing's gonna happen, if I have to go all the way to Berlin and punch Hitler out myself."

Steve smirked wearily. "I doubt either of us are going to punch out Hitler anytime soon." He cleaned the comb one last time on the newsprint, then put it on the table with a sigh. "All done, Buck. I can check again tomorrow if you want, but I think we got them all."

"Aw, you might as well check tomorrow, Stevie. I'd hate to show up to boot camp with a bunch of nits in my hair. Don't want 'em to think I'm a bum."

"Too late for that," Steve said.

"Jerk," Bucky said without heat. He didn't move, either. He just put his free hand on Steve's ankle, turned his head so that part of his face was leaning against Steve's leg.

"Hey," Steve said. "You falling asleep on me, there?" He realized after he said it that his voice wasn't nearly as light as he'd hoped.

"I'm going to miss you, Steve," Bucky said.

Steve gritted his teeth against the newly painful tightness in his throat. He leaned forward so he could wrap his arms around Bucky's shoulders, crossing them over his chest. Bucky lifted his head so their cheeks were touching. "Yeah." Steve couldn't manage anything else.

"You're getting gunk all over you," Bucky said, but he didn't let go.

"I've already got gunk all over me," Steve said. He didn't let go, either.

Bucky was the first one to pull away, standing and stretching and shaking out his shoulders. He gave Steve a big, bright grin that didn't get anywhere near his eyes. "I'd better go clean this off." He looked at Steve and grimaced. "You're gonna have to, too. You're a mess. Come on." He gestured at the bathroom behind him with his thumb. "You go first. I'm not tired yet anyway."

"I'm fine. You go ahead," Steve said. "I'm not tired either, and you've got work in the morning."

"Yeah," Bucky huffed. He shrugged. "It's my last day. What do I care?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Go wash, Buck. You wouldn't want Eli to think you're a bum, right?"

"Too late for that," Bucky said, but he went into the bathroom. He shut the door, but then opened it again and stuck his head out. "Hey, Stevie?"

Steve looked up. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Steve smiled and nodded, and Bucky shut the door again. A minute later Steve could hear the water running into the bathtub. He hoped they'd have soap left after Bucky got all the Brylcreem out of his hair.

Steve really was a mess. He had Brylcreem and ink all over his hands, more Brylcreem on his face and in his hair, and on his chest and arms from hugging Bucky. And on his leg, too. He was practically covered with the stuff.

He sighed and went to the sink in the kitchen to wash his hands. The grease washed off, but the ink wouldn't. It would have to wear off. Steve would likely have it on his fingers long after Bucky was gone.

Four days. That was all Steve had left. Four days and the ink on his hands.

Steve gripped the rim of the sink, head bent, unable to stop the tiny, awful noise that cracked out of his throat. He put his face in his hand, still clutching the sink with the other. His thin shoulders shook as he cried, jaw clenched to stay silent.

Bucky was leaving him. Maybe forever, maybe to die, and Steve was as helpless to stop it from happening as he was to get the damn ink off his skin. He couldn't stop it, and he couldn't go with him, and what the hell was the point of being safe when the one person who mattered to him in the whole wide world was gone?

Steve sniffed, swallowed, then ran the cold water and rinsed his face and eyes. He dried his face with the dishtowel, then did his best to wipe the Brylcreem off his body and out of his hair.

The window over the sink was completely black with the night outside. All Steve could see was his reflection. His scrawny neck and weak chin and too-large starveling eyes. He couldn't imagine that any recruiter would want him. They hadn't the first time. But he could try again.

He would try again. It was something he could do. Bucky would probably kill him, but Steve was sick of being helpless. He was sick to the teeth of people he loved leaving him behind.

"Steve?"

He hadn't realized how long he'd been standing staring at his reflection until Bucky's voice startled him. He whipped away from the window to see Bucky standing in the living room, clean and dry and wearing a fresh pair of boxers. He looked worried, again. "What're you doing? You okay?"

"Yeah." Steve took a breath. "Yeah, I'm okay. I was just thinking."

"About what?" Bucky's mouth quirked up at the corners. "How to get the damn Brylcreem off?"

Steve smirked a little. "No." He walked out of their tiny kitchen space, heading to the bedroom. He patted Bucky's chest as he passed him, wishing he were tall enough to sling his arm around his shoulders the way Bucky did to him all the time. "I just realized I've got somewhere to be in the morning."

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Look! Now I'm on [Tumblr!](http://taste-is-sweet.tumblr.com/) Please follow me! I am lonely and pathetic. You can find out more about me [here, too.](https://about.me/aundreasinger) :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] This Part of Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170594) by [mintsinthemug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintsinthemug/pseuds/mintsinthemug)




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